Mr. Gilles Pepin is the CEO and a shareholder of HumanWare. With more than 25 years experience, Mr. Pepin has built a solid worldwide reputation in the field of assistive technology and in the arena of visual impairment.

In 1988, Mr. Pepin founded VisuAide, a successful company specialized in high technology for people who are blind or visually impaired. VisuAide merged with PDI in 2005 to form HumanWare.

Before founding VisuAide, Mr. Pepin worked for 5 years as a consultant in a telecommunications engineering firm where he accomplished a number of noteworthy computer, telephony and other telecommunications projects. He then joined the Institut Nazareth et Louis-Braille as a technology consultant where he made his first steps in assistive technology.

Mr. Pepin holds a master's degree in digital speech signal processing from the Université de Sherbrooke and completed post-graduate studies (DEA) at the Université de Rennes, France. He also studied management accounting at McGill University in Montreal. He received his engineering degree from the Université de Sherbrooke in 1982.

Roy Hessel - President and CEO of the Clearly Group

Roy is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Clearly Group, the world's largest online optical retailer. A tech entrepreneur; he has been a pioneer of online optical since he founded EyeBuyDirect in 2005 with the ambition to make vision correction globally accessible. Roy’s vision was made possible by joining with the Essilor Group (EPA:EI) in 2012, and he now leads the world's largest online optical group with operations in Canada, USA, Sweden, China, Japan, and Brazil.

For his innovations in the online optical space and his work to promote awareness of vision health, Roy was recently appointed member of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader class of 2016. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School (OPM) and Rutgers Business School (MBA).

François d'Alverny - Group Treasurer, Essilor International

François d'Alverny joined the Essilor Group in November 2009 as Director of Finance and Treasury. He is currently based in Charenton-le-Pont (France).

François d'Alverny held various financial posts within the Michelin Group during 20 years, successively in Germany, France, and Switzerland, where he worked as a Treasurer from 2005 to 2009.

Graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Sciences (1989) and of the Harvard Business School Program for Management Development (2004), he is Director of the AFTE (French Association of Corporate Treasurers) and Senior Lecturer at Sciences Po.

Humanware

For over 25 years, HumanWare's inspirational vision has resulted in a range of highly intuitive and intelligent solutions that empower people who are blind or with low vision by giving them the independence to participate effectively within a sighted world.